


Ripples into Waves

by silv3rbloodalch3mist



Category: The Little Mermaid (1989), The Little Mermaid - All Media Types, Treasure Planet (2002)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Historical Fantasy, cecalia!Jim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silv3rbloodalch3mist/pseuds/silv3rbloodalch3mist
Summary: They’re both playing a dangerous game with lives on the line, and the only way they’ll survive is if they work together.





	Ripples into Waves

**Author's Note:**

> Am I really posting another au while I still have several ongoing? 
> 
> Yes. Yes I am.
> 
> Inspired by an edit by [Bigender-Mermaids on tumblr](https://bigender-mermaids.tumblr.com/post/132900055831/romeo-and-juliet-au-where-jim-is-ursulas-son)!

Ariel was numb.

There.... There was just nothing. She couldn’t feel her fins at all, her fingers felt like she had just gone swimming through the arctic, and her face was completely dead. Was she even still crying? It was impossible to tell.

She didn’t recognize any of their surroundings as she followed the two eels further and further away from the borders of Atlantica, and would have asked where they were going were her tongue not swollen and dry in her mouth. The salt water she swallowed down stung for the first time in her life, and her chest heaved with dry sobs. Her father’s rage had turned the water acidic and burning, the tides buffeting against her and slowing her progress. It tied her stomach in knots and she almost considered going back. But that would mean facing her father’s rage - and his disappointment - face to face, and Ariel didn’t think she’d ever be ready for that.

“Right thisss way,” one of the eels said with a slow grin, one sickly, yellow eye focusing on her. A shiver ran down her spine, every instinct in her head telling her to swim away. She followed anyways, dodging the exhaust from the vents and swimming around the boiling water.

They had to be nearing the Trenches, seeing as there was no life to be found. The water only got darker and warmer as they swam on, and Ariel squirmed uncomfortably. She could feel dark magic in the water, coating her scales and skin with its thick, heavy feeling. They were also getting slowly closer to shore, the sand underneath them rising at a shallow angle. Ariel knew that the incline would get sharper and steeper until it stopped at Ryn’s Trench, then it was only a few lengths to the beach. Ariel thought of Eric and that palace full of human wonders and people who wouldn’t judge her for her fascination with the unknown, and powered through the haze of thick magic.

The incline suddenly dropped off, a short, but deep, trench cutting the seafloor in half. Ryn’s Trench. Ariel hesitated, but the two eels dove easily down, and Ariel really had no choice but to follow after them. It cut deeper and deeper as it twisted parallel to the beach, and Ariel could feel eyes on her, her bright emerald tail almost like a beacon in the dark waters. If she listened closely, she could hear whispers, and she drew to an abrupt halt when she felt something brush against her wrist.

A pale hand reached out from a opening in the stone wall, grasping for Ariel. It was hard to see inside, but the twin, white eyes were impossible to miss, and Ariel gasped as she drew back in fear. The hand reached out further towards her, an impossible sadness in those terrifying eyes. Curiosity and compassion rose to the forefront of her mind, even past the panic and heartbreak, and Ariel began to reach back; a question already waiting on her tongue, a _‘Please, how can I help?’_

Static tickled at her lateral fins and Ariel flinched away again, looking down at the twin eels that had begun to slowly spin their way around her hips, herding her away from the broken figure still grasping for her.

(Trying to stop her from moving onwards. Trying to warn her.)

“Forgotten,” the longer twin murmured in a hiss.

“Abandoned,” the smaller agreed.

“Disssgraced.”

“Best to forget it, princesssss.”

“The rest of the sssea hasss.”

One wrapped around her wrist, tugging her firmly away, and Ariel followed hesitantly; looking back at the grasping, desperate figure with regret and questions still on her tongue, but they were soon around the corner and the creature was slowly forgotten.

The trench slowly widened and opened until they were once again swimming through open water, now heading away from the shore at a shallow angle. Bizzare stone formations dotted the sandy landscape, and the trio twined slowly through the natural maze of sorts. Ariel had fallen behind again, trying to make sense of her thoughts mercilessly tossed about in the storm that had taken residence in her head.

“What are _you_ doing here?” the longer eel hissed suddenly, drawing her attention back to the two, and Ariel poked her head around the corner to catch a glimpse of who they were talking to.

A young merman lounged against one of the pillars of rock, arms crossed over his bare chest and a bored look of disdain twisting his features. His dark brown hair hung weightlessly around his head in the water, occasionally brushing past his ear and the piercings there (was that a fishing hook pushed through his ear?).

“Now, what kind of greeting is that?” he drawled, giving the two slippery creatures a sly grin before his attention swung to Ariel, freezing her in her spot. His eyes were a piercing grey-blue, cold and sharp, and Ariel could almost believe he was able to see right through her.

Whatever retort the two eels attempted to fire back was lost on the merman as he inspected the young princess, his eyes never leaving her face. After a moment, he pushed away from the rocks to swim closer to her, and that was when Ariel got her first glimpse as his tail.

Eight dark tentacles branched off from his narrow hips, pushing him through the water in a way so unlike how a merman moved that it looked almost alien. He moved like the tide, a steady push and pull as he edged closer to her. She watched him, frozen in shock and slight awe as he alighted before her.

“You must be Princess Ariel,” he said softly, bowing slightly at the waist before her. Again, his eyes never left her own, and Ariel almost shied away from the attention. Most of her father’s subjects refused to meet her gaze, no matter how much Ariel insisted such formalities weren’t necessary. Now, with this strange man whom she didn’t know, it felt almost inappropriate. But under the distress and the pain, she was still Ariel, and found her curiosity piqued by the man who looked her in the eyes with no hesitation. She didn’t look away.

“I am, yes,” she murmured. She returned his bow hesitantly, but the cecaelia didn’t comment on her discomfort. Instead, he gave her a small, reassuring smile that seemed wildly out of place in the dark, dead waters they were swimming in.

“Lady Ursula sent me to make sure you arrived safely,” he explained. “These waters are probably unfamiliar to someone from Atlantica, and she wanted to be sure you were comfortable.”

The water by her hips shifted, and the two eels she had been traveling with began to curl and twist around her. Ariel stiffened in response, flinching each time their tails brushed her sensitive lateral fins. “We have it handled,” the shorter eel rasped, twisting so his head peeked over her shoulder.

“The little mer-princesss isss sssafe with usss,” his brother cooed. The cecaelia sighed, Ariel almost missing the roll of his eyes as he began to move along the ocean floor. She was enraptured again by the strange way he traveled over the sand, a graceful shift of his tentacles that almost looked like human walking.

“I’m sure she is,” he said dryly, moving in a slow circle around Ariel and the two eels. “But I’m sure our guest here would much rather make the rest of the journey…”

The two eels yelped in unison as Ariel felt a sudden shock of magic at the edge of her senses. The spell didn’t hit her, but the two eels swam away from her like they had been bitten.

“With a more friendly face,” the cecaelia finished, smiling shrewdly as he came up to her side. The eels hissed at him, crooked, needle-thin teeth bared in response to the attack, but he wasn’t frightened. If anything, he looked amused by their attempt at a threat, snorting in snide amusement as he shook the remaining magic off his hands.

“Swim along,” he dismissed them, jerking his head in the universal sign for _‘get lost’_. “I’ll take it from here.”

They hesitated for only a moment, sneering at the young man and glancing at Ariel with a hungry, calculating look that made fear drip coldly down her spine, but soon the eels swam away together. Ariel and the stranger watched them go, the young mermaid shifting awkwardly in the silence, and once the eels were out of sight the cecaelia turned and looked Ariel over.

“Are you alright?” he asked her, his voice gentle, and Ariel blinked at him in confusion. His demeanor had… softened, almost instantaneously. One moment he was cool and aloof and a little intimidating just because he himself refused to be intimidated, and then his expression just… opened up. In Ariel’s current mindset - halfway between panic and nauseating heartbreak, it was a little more than she could process.

“I’m… not sure,” she admitted, feeling her bottom lip start to quiver and biting down on it to hide the shaking.

“No one comes to Ursula if they’re fine,” the cecaelia countered; again, more gently than she had expected. “What do you want?” The question wasn’t accusatory, just curious, but it still made Ariel’s stomach knot up. Again, she tried to take a deep breath and the salty water _burned_ her, sobs rising unbidden.

“I don’t know,” Ariel said shakily, feeling terror rearing inside of her, ready to tie her stomach in knots. “I-I don’t _know_.”

“Hey, hey,” he said gently, motioning for her to settle down. “It’s alright. Take a deep breath.”

“It _hurts,”_ Ariel gasped, eyes feeling squishy in that uncomfortable way it always did when she cried. She had no tears like humans did.

“Because you expect it to hurt,” he reassured, and held his hand out towards her. She looked at the offered hand with wide eyes, at the tanned skin and calluses that marked his hand. Far from the skeletal, pale hand that had reached for her earlier, but the gesture was the same.

She laid her hand carefully in his.

“ _Breathe_ ,” the cecaelia repeated again, resting his other hand over hers and rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. Ariel did as he said, taking a slow, cautious breath. The sting was still there, but not as bad as before, and she repeated the motion. Soon, the gasping sobs had receded and she was breathing almost normally. “There you go, princess.”

“Who are you?” Ariel asked softly, voice still a hint rough, and the corner of the cecaelia’s lip pulled up in what was almost a smile.

“Call me Jim,” he said as he let go of her hands. “I’m Ursula’s apprentice.”

Ariel’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know she had an apprentice,” she said slowly, questioningly.

“Not many do.”

Well, that was unhelpfully vague, and Ariel found herself pouting at Jim in reply. The small quirk to his lip pulled up into a crooked grin, and she couldn’t help but think that he was rather lovely when he wasn’t closed off like he had been before. “Sorry, but we don’t have much time,” Jim explained, nodding for her to follow him as he began to move across the seafloor. Ariel swam after him slowly. “Flotsam and Jetsam will come back if we take too long.”

“And we don’t want that?”

“Did _you_ want to swim with them?” Jim asked, one eyebrow quirked high, and Ariel shook her head. “Didn’t think so. Besides, best they weren’t involved in this conversation. You need a plan for dealing with Ursula.”

“A plan?” Ariel asked slowly, her face pinched in confusion, and Jim nodded.

“I can’t talk you out of whatever you came here to do, but I can make sure you don’t get a shit deal,” he explained. “Thus the question; what do you want?”

Ariel took a moment to think about his question. What _did_ she want? She wanted to not feel ostracised for her love of the surface world, wanted the chance to make her own choices, wanted to escape from under her father’s thumb, wanted him to be proud of her. But that wasn’t what Jim had meant, and Ariel sighed as she pushed her hair back from her face.

“I want to leave the kingdom,” she whispered, like Triton was just behind one of the strange formations and listening in. “I don’t belong in Atlantica.”

Jim looked the young mermaid over with a quirked eyebrow, and she remembered belatedly that cecaelias weren’t usually allowed in Atlantica. Not after Ursula’s time in court. She flinched, realizing that she had been incredibly rude, but Jim just nodded. “Ursula can help you with that,” he began, and for the first time, Ariel felt hopeful.

“She can-?”

Jim raised a finger, cutting her off with the simple motion. “But not for free,” he continued, giving her a meaningful look. “The first thing you should know about dealing with Ursula? She always has her own agenda. _Always._ You have to make her think that what you want is what _she_ wants.”

Ariel nodded, lips pursed in a hard line. Negotiating, huh? She could negotiate. She had been watching her father - and before her untimely death, her mother Athena - deal with the members of court since she was old enough to keep herself from drifting off with the current. Youngest daughter or not, Ariel knew how to work a room.

“Never take the first deal she offers,” Jim instructed, leading Ariel deeper into the lifeless waters. “It’s crap, and you’ll end up in debt for life if you’re not incredibly, _incredibly_ lucky.”

“If I were lucky, I wouldn’t be desperate enough to be here.”

“Touche.”

“What else?” Ariel asked, and Jim seemed pleased that she was taking him seriously. Desperate people - _'Willing to break Atlantean law’_ kind of desperate - usually weren't the most rational, but his calm demeanor and control of the situation anchored her anxious thoughts; keeping her centered.

“She’ll likely give you a requirement to fill; something you’ll have to do to make the spell permanent. It’ll be specific and you won’t have much time to meet it; try to give yourself as much leeway as you can. More time, broader terms. Both, if you can. But don’t push your luck, or she’ll figure out what you’re doing and make it even harder to complete. Her pride is delicate, and she won't take a slight against it easily, no matter how badly she wants a deal.”

Ariel was silent for a moment. “... And how badly does she want a deal with me?” she whispered, stomach dropping. Jim stopped, looking back at her with those piercing, ice-blue eyes that didn't hesitate to meet her own. His expression was solemn.

“Pretty fucking badly.” Ariel didn't even find the mental capacity to be offended at his rough language, instead focusing on the panic building in her head and compressing her chest once more. Jim held out his hand again and this time Ariel slipped her hand into his without hesitation, holding on tightly.

“That means she's willing to be more lenient than usual to get what she wants. You're a league ahead of her, princess,” Jim reassured Ariel gently. “You can make this work in your favor.”

Ariel nodded slowly, taking slow breaths. He was right; three minutes ago she had no plan other than _'Get as far away from Atlantica - and by extension, her father - as possible’_. Now, she knew what lay at the end of this path.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked suddenly, looking at Jim curiously. Something flashed behind his expression for a fraction of a moment, but it was gone before she could really see it.

“I have an agenda too,” Jim said cryptically, a small grin forming before Ariel could begin to properly pout at his less-than-reassuring answer. “Don't worry, that agenda puts me firmly on your side. I'm not a fan of how Ursula likes to conduct her business, and the more I can do to help innocent merfolk, like yourself? The better.”

It was a lot of trust to put into the hands of man she had barely known for five minutes, but there was no judgement in his voice like there had been when Sebastian had tried to stop her. No condescension, no lack of faith. Just simple facts. That, at least, she felt she could trust.

“Don't accept the first deal, get a long deadline and broader requirements to fulfill, and don't hurt her pride,” Ariel listed off, nodding. “Anything else?”

“Just a couple. One, don't look at me once negotiations start,” Jim instructed. “She’ll know I helped you and will punish us both. Two, she'll try to distract you, get you caught up in the spectacle so you don't realize what she's offering. Don't get distracted. And lastly…”

Jim came to a stop by a large rock, peeking around the corner carefully. Ariel mimicked the motion, gasping when she saw the large skeleton of a sea monster with its mouth menacingly open; ready to devour whoever came along next. It was propped up by a formation of rocks, pale coral growing from the remains with purple light and steam rising from the openings.

“Don’t touch anything,” Jim said, giving her a small smirk, and Ariel could only nod mutely.

He held his arm out to her and after a moment of confusion, Ariel laced her own through his; holding tightly onto his bicep as they approached the beast’s mouth. Even knowing it was long dead and couldn’t harm her, Ariel flinched as they passed the creature’s wicked fangs. The deep, purple light was coming from the algae that was growing along the bones that made up the roof of Ursula’s dwelling, throwing everything in the hall they were swimming down - _‘The throat_ ’ Ariel thought as fear dripped down her spine - into dramatic shadows. The planes of Jim’s face were even shaper now, his eyes still that chilling, piercing blue, and he was back to looking disinterested. Ariel silently mourned the more-open Jim that had escorted her to the lair of his mistress. Though the fact that he still let her cling to his arm and thus close to the comforting heat of his body helped.

A low moaning sound seemed to echo off the walls, and Ariel looked around with a nervous curiosity, trying to find the source of the noise. It wasn’t until Jim reached down, his fingers trailing along the top of the what appeared to be a seaweed garden, that Ariel noticed the eyes. Dozens of them, looking up at them pathetically, attached to twisted, rotting bodies swaying in the current.

Ariel gasped in horror, clinging closer to Jim, and felt one of his tentacles slide against her tail gently; almost like he was trying to sooth her. “It’s alright, they won’t hurt you,” he said softly, as one polyp twined around his wrist, tugging weakly. He gave it a soft, sad look, stroking his thumb along the head until it released him.

“What are they?” Ariel asked, voice shaking. Some of them strained towards her, giving low moans of pain, but none reached out to grab her like they had Jim.

“Lost,” Jim said vaguely, and if she wasn’t too terrified in that moment to think of anything else, she would have smacked him for continuing to give her such broad, unhelpful responses. Instead she tucked her head against his shoulder, unable to look away from those wide, sad eyes and toothless mouths

(The deeper in she swam, the more she began to realize why this part of the ocean was forbidden. Nothing thrived here; there were only skeletons and ghosts and memories, left to wash away and slowly die.

And then there were the cecaelias.)

“Lady Ursula,” Jim called ahead as they reached the belly of the beast, the moaning polyps left behind them as Jim parted a curtain of hanging seaweed with one dark tentacle. “Princess Ariel of Atlantica is here to see you.”

It felt almost bizarrely formal to be announced as she swam into the room with her new escort, especially considering the circumstances, but it helped remind her of what she needed to do. She was here to negotiate, and in order to do that, she had to let Ursula think she was powerless. The sea witch didn’t know that her apprentice had given Ariel any help, and she had to be sure it stayed that way.

Good thing she already looked terrified and desperate. All the best lies have a base in the truth.

“Come in, come in, my child!” a low, rolling alto called from inside the room as Jim helped her through the seaweed and deeper into Ursula’s dwelling. It almost looked like a study, with a large, misshapen stone cauldron in the center and various ingredients tucked away on shelves, in old treasure chests, or hanging from the ceiling. “We mustn't lurk in doorways,” the voice continued, coming from the large shell hanging further towards the back of the room. Several tentacles, thicker than Jim’s and a deeper shade of near-purple spilled from the opening, and the rest of Ursula followed languishly; alighting on the floor with more grace than Ariel would have expected. “It’s rude,” Ursula drawled, looking over Ariel. “Some might question your upbringing.”

Ariel ducked her head down, partially in embarrassment and partially out of fear. Ursula had been long-banished from the court by the time Ariel had been born, so the only things she knew of her were the stories Attina and Alana would frighten their younger sisters with. Tales of a cecaelia as tall as the trenches were deep, with sharp fangs and terrible claws on her hands to tear into whichever unfortunate sea creature fell into her trap. Ariel peered through her hair and saw that the stories were barely rooted in fact, if at all. Aside from the tentacles, Ursula looked like any other merperson; save for the deep grey tint to her skin that was a common trait for her people. _‘Well, most,’_ Ariel acquiesced, glancing at the tan arm linked with her own, only a shade or two lighter than her own.

The sea witch had brilliant white hair that barely moved in the current even as she made her way closer, her pale eyes locked on Ariel’s. “I trust the swim wasn’t too rough?” she asked, more out of formality than anything, and Ariel nodded her head nervously.

“Yes’m,” she said softly, and Ursula grinned in a way that made Ariel’s hands shake.

“Very good. As soon as I knew you were coming, I sent James right away,” she said, dismissing Jim with a wave of her hand. “The waters around here can be quite dangerous, you know?”

Jim pulled away from Ariel with a small nod towards Ursula, and Ariel resisted the urge to drag him back by the arm; feeling suddenly and frighteningly alone. He didn’t even look back at her as he moved towards a ledge in the wall, reclining and watching them with a bored expression much like he had been before. Remembering his words, Ariel watched him leave for just a moment before looking at Ursula; immediately dropping her eyes again in submission.

“I did not,” she said quietly. “I don’t know these waters well. Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it,” Ursula said, bowing deeply - almost sarcastically - towards Ariel before turning and heading deeper into the study. Ariel could do nothing but follow. “Now, come in! We have business to discuss, do we not?”

 


End file.
